


Cinderella and Me

by Nitzer



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, lots of gross stuff, lots of implied gross stuff, men won't save you lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 14:30:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10538421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitzer/pseuds/Nitzer
Summary: "Now it always seemed such a waste, she always had a pretty face"He just kept shoving affection on me and I couldn’t return it because I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel anything.





	

**Author's Note:**

> super obviously inspired by late 90's hit "One Headlight"  
> CW: implied suicide, implied manipulation and stuff, just be warned that there's some shit in here

“One day we’re gonna get out of here, you know?” Adam told me one day over our late-night, Friday pizza.

It addressed the dumb, Disney princess want I’d had for a while. I just always wondered if there was something better than what I had been given. I always wanted something more—something I couldn’t define or express, something I just knew I was missing. I figured that things would keep getting better, you know? I never figured that things would peak with me being _content_.

I suppose Adam hit on something by offering a way outside this city. It was technically a city with two high schools and no farms and all, but it was boring as hell with like four things to do squashed alongside a tourist trap. There were two malls (gigantic, indoor things for the one week it _might_ snow down here), a Seaworld and a zoo. We still had pizza nights at one of the malls (it hardly mattered which one, they both had pizza places and both sucked equally) but I got sick of the whole city back when excitement was still a real emotion that I felt sometimes.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

                “Someday.” I echoed, mostly unconvinced. I didn’t really want to discuss my yearning with Adam. Especially not after he picked me up with the same lame line he’d been using since he got a car. “Hop in, Cinderella,” he always told me like it was cute. I don’t know why he called me “Cinderella” or “Ellie” or “Princess” or something else like that. I guess he fancied himself my prince, but picking me up and calling me Cinderella just made him the mouse.

                “I mean, you can’t stay at the video store forever and I do _not_ wanna be a manager at the bakery.” We both closed at our jobs because we were night owls and had nowhere better to be. If I wasn’t at the store I’d just be watching reruns of _Friends_ or playing _Street Fighter_ with Adam.

                “Yeah,” I agreed. I didn’t really mind the video store though. It was okay. I picked at the cheese pizza we always got because I didn’t like pepperoni but I didn’t particularly like the pizza either.

                “Steven’s back in the house.” He told me. This was normal conversation for us, just trading stories. I liked it.

                “Yeah, did he finally get kicked out of his fancy school?” Steven was Adam’s older brother, one of the jock twins that tortured Adam for being quiet and nerdy all of their adolescence.

                “No, but he is really bad at keeping track of his crap.”

                I snorted. “No kidding.”

                He smiled like he was really, actually excited. “We’re gonna do something cool tonight, come on. I’ve got a surprise.”

Sitting in his car waiting for him didn’t feel like anything new or special, certainly didn’t feel like a surprise. I used to wait outside Adam’s house while he made sure Steven and Mark were gone or occupied all the time.  But we still rode our bikes down to arcades back then and there wasn’t anything Adam was protecting me from this time. I was actually _waiting_ rather than hiding. So, I guess, it was something new.

                Adam came back with a brown bottle. It took me a minute to connect the red-and-yellow label with the bottle with Steven. “Is that Kahlua?” I asked, almost laughing.

                “Yeah, turns out that Steven likes the girly stuff.” He was backing out of the driveway already and, yeah, I guess this _was_ something new. This wasn’t something I’d gotten sick of back in high school. This wasn’t part of the routine me and Adam kept falling into. This was something else.

                “Where are we going?”

                “That’s part of the surprise.” He smirked devilishly at the road ahead of him and it reminded me nothing of the quiet kid who was way too good at _Pacman_ that I’d known for years.

                We pulled up to tiny little park in the middle of the suburbs. Either of us could’ve grown up here—it was nothing special—but we didn’t. It was _new_. And I think, somewhere, I was feeling giddy?

Adam pulled me out of the car and I was _giggling_ and we stumbled onto the creaking, old bench. And the cap spun off the Kahlua and we were taking turns sipping at it and it was sweet and strong and bitter. And the stars were bright out here—like, _so_ bright—and Adam’s words spilled out, loud and confused and my laughter echoed off the late-night silence. And then it was quiet again and I could feel Adam just looking at me.

                Adam did that a lot during quiet moments. He’d just stare at me while he thought I wasn’t looking, all fond and adoring. I’d figured that Adam had a little crush on me for a while, probably since we were sixteen. I didn’t bother acknowledging it, though. Adam was just Adam—my best friend, nothing different from what we were when we were eight. The looks weren’t anything but awkward. The nicknames weren’t anything more than annoying. All the new habits did nothing for me so I didn’t say or do anything about them, no matter how obvious they got.

                But maybe that’s where I messed up. Maybe I wasn’t happy anymore because I was ignoring all these new things. Maybe if I just returned a bit of that affection…Maybe Adam was what I was missing. Maybe he was that nameless longing I couldn’t get away from.

                It seemed pretty obvious now. I caught Adam’s gaze—hazel eyes dark and swampy but still longing and adoring. He didn’t look away this time. He shook the hair out of his face. It was a shaggy, unkempt, brown mess—I doubted he’d gotten it cut since he attempted something fashionable a while back. The moonlight glinted off his smile—one I recognize this time—sweet with just a hint of his skittish nature.

Adam knew me better than anyone else. I was familiar with him. And he made me laugh that night—made me _feel_ something even if it was faint and hard to detect. So, I leaned over and kissed him, just barely catching the corner of his mouth. He grabbed my face and deepened the kiss so quickly that I could only assume that he had liked me all these years. The kiss was nothing special, a little sloppy, I guess, but neither of us were exactly sober.

                “You’re beautiful.” He whispered against my neck and I just laughed because I was average at best. I kissed him again because it was easier—better—than him talking to me like a princess.

                We drove home once the sun had just started to tint the sky pink. While we drove, words spilled from my mouth, filling the silence Adam left. I wasn’t just telling him stories this time. I was telling him about _me_. I was picking up the conversation that I’d been skillfully avoiding since we were sixteen and Adam started _prying_. I told him about feeling numb and empty and _yearning_ —always yearning. And I told him about being content at best and how I just wanted to be _happy_ again.

                When we pulled up to my house Adam just looked at me, eyes watery and hard. “We’ll keep running until we find what you’ve been wanting.” He promised and kissed me again.

                So, we did.

                We stopped the routines. We never went back to the malls or the zoo or Seaworld. We wandered through the suburbs. We got lunch in little cafes outside the city. We stopped trading stories because the stories were shared—there was nothing to trade. Instead Adam talked about going to college in the fall. He wanted to be a screenwriter or a programmer. He didn’t know yet. I was still as uninterested in college as I was when we graduated.

                But I never stopped feeling numb. I never found anything that made me feel better. I never felt anything more than I did that night in the park with Adam. And he never stopped with the prince bullshit. He hadn’t said my name since that night either. I was always “princess” or “Ellie” or something like it. None of them fit me.

                The numbness was shaken when Adam decided to push his luck and trail his hand up my shirt while we were kissing. It wasn’t happiness I felt, though, or anything like it. It was just faint disgust. I don’t know why the disgust decided to kick in then. Maybe I thought of Adam as more of a brother after all these years. I didn’t know what that would feel like though. Adam had three brothers, I had none. I also couldn’t tell if the disgust was preferable to the emptiness.

                The yearning never left. Adam called me “beautiful” fourteen times in one day and I felt nothing. He wasn’t filling that emptiness. He wasn’t what I was looking for. He just kept shoving affection on me and I couldn’t return it because I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel anything.

                But we still kept running. We just stopped doing it together. He thought the further we ventured away from the city, the better I got. I knew that nothing was working. I knew that I had already used my last chance. I knew that I wouldn’t get better. But I kept running too because there _would_ be something better for me—something more.

I only stopped when I hit the window ledge. And falling, I really felt something—sharp and clear—for the first time since I could remember. It was fear. It consumed me.

                Then I felt the concrete and if I’d been able to think, I would’ve been happy just feeling again.


End file.
